PRIVATE vehicle owners have accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) of failing to pay them after hiring their vehicles in the recent election.
The vehicles were hired through the government's Central Mechanical and Equipment Department (CMED) at a rate of US$152 per day.
One of the vehicle owners who refused to be named said they are disgruntled over the late payment.
“Our vehicles were hired by Zec to carry voting material including ballot papers to distribute in all polling stations. Zec is not appreciating the work we did. The commission promised to pay us once the voting exercise was complete, but to date no payment has been made. We were told to ask CMED and it claims that it has not yet been paid,” said the vehicle owner.
CMED general manager Stephen Mavhura said they were still compiling information on the number of cars used during the exercise.
“We are still raising bills which have to go to Zec so that we are paid. There is reconciliation that is to be done and we reached an agreement. There is a bit of work that has to be done before payment is done, paperwork starts from the district and provincial offices then we bring it to the head office before payments are done,” he said.
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Zec chief elections officer Utloile Silaigwana told NewsDay that they were working on settling the debts.
“Treasury has allocated adequate funds to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for the payment of goods and services that facilitated conduct of the 23 August 2023 harmonised elections and the commission hopes to settle all its debts in this regard soon,” said Silaigwana.